SAN FRANCISCANS DONT ASK QUESTIONS

 San Franciscans don't ask too many questions. I made this video, because I wanted to represent the calmness and wonderful aspects of the bay area. In London, this video would not have a reggae tune set to it. I also made this for my photography class at Drew School.  I wanted to use this video to show a tourists view of San Francisco. 

Defences

I was always told,
"Pull yourself together!"
"Stop punishing yourself!"
"You're being hysterical!"
"Stop it! It's boring!"
I am very grateful for this
Seeing me depressed and tearful was a shock
Because it disturbed my otherwise sunny disposition
"You're expanding!" she said
But then wonders why I don't always want to talk to her
When I am vulnerable
I have learnt to see myself as a wonderful person
Instead a messy puddle of body issues and chocolate wrappers
She used to tell me that I needed to develop a thicker skin
But now I have calloused hands
He lies in the mud watching bullets fly over his nose,
In mid-air
Saying "If I lie down, I won't get hurt"
Please,
Never lie down in the mud
Don't let the eroding, murky water and hungry larvae drag you into an early purgatory,
Because if you can bend like Neo
And jump like Trinity then the men in suits and black, minimal shades won't bug you.

False Promises

When you get inspired by
An ad on the subway
Or the word "lighter"
I know that there's little chance
Of finishing anything I write
So I have to work on it
Having 600, 2 page "short stories" on your desktop
And a piece of gum plastered in your hair
Doesn't make you a writer
This isn't the Wizard of Oz,
The literary ruby slippers aren't thrust upon you!
You have to find the wizard by yourself
And run through the opium field in Sunday shoes quickly
There's no one to blame
So don't waste time spinning in circles
Searching for a patsy
"A writer is someone who writes" she said authoritatively
It would have been more fun to say,
"A writer is someone who knows how to use adverbs gingerly."

Thinking About The Future With....Imagination

Thinking about the future with…imagination

When I think about the future

A gift for fiction - as my mum put it 

I imagine a world where women ask trans men to marry them via Instagram, 

A world where women take baths in multi-colored Jello

Because smelling like artificial fruit is sexy 

I envision TV screens implanted in tech guys chests so that they are always Advertising their latest products

I see a world where politicians appear in front of us in hologram form

To deliver mass messages, because it is more efficient

I have nightmares about trees being replaced with oxygen tanks

Because all the trees have been burned down

And dead leaves lie next to worms in the soil

When I think about the future

I see mirrors becoming selfie cameras

And vanity becoming self-confidence

I fear the death of reading paperback books

Which smell like sticky adhesive, ink and wisdom

I worry that I will only be able to call myself a writer of E-books 

Strapped for time

A world of fiction has unlimited time 

Non fiction is guarded by a ticking clock 

And the hands move more rapidly then a journalists feet 

Fiction presents many entrances with open door policies 

While reality simply stands among happy and sad truths 

Fiction must plug it's plot holes and fence off any disbelievers from the story 

So that rhetoric doesn't murder the sublime  

Writing unites surrealism with grounding facts 

Ideally I would like to shoot up into the sky on a rhinoceroses back 

But when I start to forget what my brothers eyebrows look like, 

I can inject an itch in the rhinos ears 

So that we land on the hardwood floors of my bedroom 

With the San Francisco sunlight poking through the blinds 

3 Poems

If I’m lucky, it’s a slow death

Inspiration is a fiery, muscular athlete

Running through my mind

Inspiration gives me power, vitality, motivation and perspiration

It sets me off into frenzy

The small Olympian taunts, pokes and provokes me

I keep him on a short leash

I am faster than my own inspiration

But he would out run me

If I didn’t maintain a watchful eye on him

Inspiration is my alter ego

I want this poem to inspire

To form tracks in your head,

To pinch your inner neurons

And seep out through your ears

Inspiration is a sprinter

He has short spurts of energy

His energy is synonymous with burning internal heat

When my body gets hot with ambition

It becomes a rocky cliff

The shudder of my broiling brain 

Causes an avalanche through my torso

My throat is a dry, cracked canyon

Without water for miles away

Until reaching a watering hole in the distance

My inspiration never reaches the water

When I love the dark room

My inspiration takes ten minutes of recovery,

Flops onto the pages of my notebook

Has a heart attack

And dies.

Women are aware. Girls are bare.

I am not afraid to be beautiful

My over compensating smiles

And thick eyeliner shows my attempts

My body tells a tragic story

But my personality salvages some potential

I am a punching bag

I am the gun powder that

Pushes the bullet out of the old fashioned hand gun

But when the 12 mm tries to leave the barrel

It backfires

And the shooters face turns into a bloody pulp

A mess of falling fake eye lashes and smudged rouge lipstick

Coated in corn syrup

The scars of aggression stain my neck and lower back

When I clogged the toilet

She bashed my ears into my brain

Leaving craters in the sides of my head

She beat me with a bag of serial killer, rapist words

Which are worst then getting stabbed

Because wounds heal

And can be forgotten

But I still remember her banging on my bedroom door

And knife cutting through the lock

Leaving her out of my personal space was a VIP invitation in her eyes

She is the worst mother when I am rude and stroppy

And a good mother when I am nice

I am not afraid to be charming, I resent this accusation

Her sick projection is like throwing a

Sheet over an ugly sofa to mask the cheap, moth eaten, polyester upholstery,

I am the worst daughter when my jeans cut the circulation around my mid section but a lovely daughter when I love myself

I punish others when I punish myself

Which only leaves me in a regretful puddle

Soaking into my couch

For my dog to sniff briefly then ignore because it doesn’t smell like bacon

Telescope Vision

When I said, “Yes, I am a feminist”

Small-minded boys laughed in my face

And girls obsessed with snap chat didn’t even look up

I had to resist the redness in my cheeks

It is wrong to ignore stupidity

But it is silly to be embarrassed by their ignorance

I didn’t want to hide my opinions

Because hiding might as well be apologizing

And why say sorry if it didn’t mean shit to me weather they heard me or not

When they called me a femm-nazi,

It solidified that boys think women who want gender equality hate men!

I want to squash this concept like a hot cigarette with sparks flying around my ankles

I want to see the day when being passionate doesn’t make you a psychopathic killer

The Nazis murdered 6,000 Jews

Feminists have only bandaged the wounds of young girls who were told they have no sense of direction

Unfortunately, I did care

That these boys called me a fem-Nazi

Their Facebook posts, likes and emojis

Scared me from opening my laptop

But they were only scared on the inside

Unconsciously

Because there is fear in feminism

And I want to make it known to people

Beyond room 103 at Drew School

"When the Dust Clears" - CTS

When the dust clears

 Apple handed me the knife and I violently tore through the veiny twelve by twelve inch envelope. It contained a cassette tape, a gun and a note. We sat down and dug our fingers into the sand. We didn’t have any water left and our teepee resembled the trimmed, scattered hair on a barbershop’s floor. The last boat that we saw sailed along the horizon and evaporated on the edge where the water meets the sky. We tried to call out to it but our mouths were subdued by dirt and our noses caked with seaweed. I played the tape. The eerie music scratched the insides of my ears.

My nails were chewed down to the nub. Blood ran down my fingers from the ruts of my cuticles. Her burnt smile and temporarily squinted eyes frightened me even though I knew her from the days she chewed the heads off Barbies at age five. Our skin was scarred from the dead branches in the forest. Her eyes were drowned in her skull and my cracked hair lay dead on my cheeks. Our scalps were boiled but our eyes were cold. The light in them burned out with our final bowl of porridge. We discovered life of the homeless when we arrived here. We have lived on the outskirts of California near the Redwood forests for a year. Our coats were our second skin. Apple’s veracity charged me. Without her I would be a flattened rats carcass on the side of the road with no one to appreciate me besides young boys fascinated by death.

Apple said, “Let’s hitch a ride down to the city.”

I said, “Let’s go.” We carried our backpacks and hiked to the highway. The bitter, rocky beach offered no more consolation. We walked up the path onto a flat road, which led down to the highway.  We held out our arms and waved to cars as they drove by. The eroding air bit my finger ridges away. “The wind up here makes me feel alive,” exclaimed Apple, but I found it suffocating. She took in a deep breath and blew out hazy smoke through her nostrils as if she was clearing out a sooty pipe. A matte black Lexus pulled over and a young man stuck his head out the window. He looked like the type of character who had blocked out the windows of his house with duct tape. He opened the door and said, “You girls need a ride?”

I leapt in the backseat and Apple followed me. “Guess that’s a yes then,” said the driver. He began to tell us about his trip to the Bellagio in Vegas and we pretended to listen. He asked if we were hungry and gestured to the coolers in the trunk. We ripped the food apart. Apple and I chugged down some Coronas and wolfed down a couple of meatball subs. The inside of the Lexus smelt like fresh meat sliced in pieces and when I examined the floor I found a backpack. Inside it appeared to be a sorority girl - hiking trip survival pack, which included an issue of Seventeen-magazine and oil free concealer. My eyes met Apple’s. She drew a telephone wire through my mind and received my thoughts.

“Can you pull over at this gas station? We need to buy a few things,” said Apple. “Thanks for the ride though.” He said, “Oh come on just let me get off the highway first!” I reached for the gun from my bag and jammed it into his back. “Listen we’re not fucking around. Stop the car or you’re dead.” He abruptly pressed down on the brakes. Apple snatched the shiny pistol from me and shot a bullet at close range through his skull. I threw his body out of the window and we took of in the Lexus.

 “Wow that was a powerful sandwich,” I said. Apple’s unrelenting smile broke out into a sharp laughter. The wheels of the car flattened the road and the blue walls around us collapsed. Apple sailed on a murderous high and I absorbed her energy. The light reappeared in her eyes. Her dusty lungs cleared. Her body weight increased by ten pounds and a healthy woman replaced the skeleton that was driving before. Her hair regained its luster. My skin became smooth and my hair grew back. The fire in my chest ignited itself. We sped down highway 101. “We should go to Vegas,” she said. The red rings around her pupils spun with intensity. “Lets stop first and clean this car out.” She agreed and we stopped at a discreet viewpoint. We emptied the trunk, hid the coolers on the side of the cliff and wiped down the whole interior. “We’re only thirty miles outside Los Angeles, let’s stay there tonight,” Apple said.  I turned to double check the trunk and I saw a handle at the front of it. I pulled it up. Benjamin Franklin stared blankly up at me three million times. “What are you doing back there Storm?” Apple asked.

“Nothing. I just wanted to look at the trunk another time before we leave.” I replied.  “Let’s go,” she said. We picked up some speed and then traffic hit. The rows of cars were lined up like bums who waited every month for their social security check. Apple turned on the radio. “Sometimes I wonder if the world’s so small, that we can never get away from the sprawl” seeped out the speaker’s voids. But we were leaving the sprawl. The crystal clear voice and innovative melody of Arcade Fire pushed the traffic through the bottleneck. We were on the way to a new identity, a new version of ourselves. We filled up the tank with gas and switched places in the car before the dreaming, drooling cashier could wake up from his wet dream.

"A Time to Kill, A Time To Not"

Cora Thornton-Silver

Short Story

           

A time to kill, a time to not.

            Thank you for taking the time to read this.

            I understand that people are cynical.

            The world is full of animals, hungry and unmerciful.

            I always experience remorse. Death is all encompassing.

                        But we all have auras around us. We can’t choose.

                        I regret the moments when I…

                                                           

They say that we wear a mask of sanity. However I wear a mask of insanity. My eyes are the scariest things about me. Blue circles, and a green rim merge with a dark pupil. These colors harmonized together. My comrade dressed in orange once told me that I’m apathetic and without passion. I have passion for fatalism. Imagine a meticulous, hungry Black Panther hunting an albino rabbit. This epitomizes me. The slick, shiny fur, the yellow eyes that remind me of an old, stuffed toy seeing through clear marbles. The dark space around me was an oppressive hole of my own murderous thoughts. I was alone in there.

 I lifted the blanket off me and looked out the window. The bright sunrays reluctantly cut through my pupils like a keen knife through a white space. My neighbor was sauntering across his dry, brown lawn to pick up the paper. His dog was ripping into the New York Times menacingly with his slobbering, droopy jaw. The man hit the dog on the nose and grabbed the paper. Then pulled the dog inside, the way white men saw slaves being pulled along with their metal collars.

Why is it socially acceptable for this asshole to beat up his dog? And I can’t exercise my instincts? I used to read the newspapers but after a while you get sick of seeing other versions of yourself on the front page. I picked up my worn; beat up copy of Macbeth instead. The first passage I read was:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from

Day to day to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our

Yesterdays have lighted fools, the way to dusty death… Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

There is method to his madness. In the beginning, he is a boy who is emasculated by his wife but he soon becomes a man with his crown and the loss of his sanity. Shakespeare once said “all the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players”. I am a player on a single stage with what I covet staring at my face.

I heed his words. I got out of bed and put on my costume. A black hood, black jeans, a Dazed and Confused shirt and black Doc Martens.  I look like a hipster mixed with a small quality that most people couldn’t pin point. Je ne sais quoi.  A little something special. I think it’s the animalistic charisma that lies underneath my rock hard, simply defined exterior. Driving my matte black jeep through the colorful streets of San Francisco defines me as a fugitive amongst the pretty, ornate, cake-like houses in Pacific Heights.

            I kept on driving for another fifteen minutes and came to a storage facility.  It had been abandoned for a couple of years. I come here to hunt out my necessities. The garage door was slightly open so I lay on the floor and rolled underneath. I felt through the darkness to the light switch. Click. Bang. Clash. A stray cat knocked over a bowl of syringes and smashed a glass beaker on the concrete. Hydrochloric acid spilled on the floor like a fizzy drink oozing down a fat kids throat. I reached for the landline in the corner. I dialed the number: (415) 529-0526. He answered. “Are you dressed up?”

 “Yes. How did you know?”

 Then I said, “I can just feel it. Head over to the old Storage Facility on Ellis and Leavenworth and bring the boys,” He agreed and hung up.  

           

                        Kill the innocently minded rabbits in the grass.

                        They don’t deserve this but we are only animals.

                        I experience remorse. Thank you for understanding,

                        Whatever it is that you take away from it.

                        I say the word sorry but it has lost all meaning.

                        In life and in death we are people with guilt.

*

            The cops sat in their patrol car and drank hot coffee.

            Jimmy said, “They aren’t even doing anything! What are we doing here?”

Costello said “Listen up, Jimmy. We know that this guy pulled up to the storage unit about an hour ago and he has already made one phone call. He’s trying to get a gang together. Isn’t that viable evidence?”

Jimmy ignored the other cops question and said, “Dude, you’ve got to check out this squirrel!”

“No.” he said sharply, “This is serious shit here. You have to get with it,” he said without mercy. Costello kicked Jimmy out of the car and said in a hushed tone “You are not here to protect or serve.” The mission was on now. It was just a question of weather Jimmy would be a rat and go tell the deputy or not. The words of Marley faded as quickly as it came. The radio played “I shot the sheriff but I didn’t shoot the deputy…”

*

And there it was. Five of the most notorious, blood thirsty members in a storage unit on Ellis Street. The gurneys were moved to the side, the metal basins full of red water were pushed to the right side of the unit. And a rectangular table was put in its place. The four men sat around it.

“Are we all here?” I asked while standing at the head of the table. There wasn’t a response right away but from the left corner a small ball of fluff rolled under the closing metal gate of the unit.

 “Leather Apron-Leather Apron- Leather Apron” the crowd shouted while standing underneath the blacksmith’s window.

A woman turned to the local Bobbie and said “Bloody Jews! Killing prosies lef and right”.

The blue and silver collar replied, “You don’t got no idea who’s the killa. So shut yor big mouth. Alright Sally!” The sour washerwoman walked away from the crime scene and over to the main drag in Whitechapel.

Children were holding up Penny Dreadfuls and yelling the headlines “Jack the Ripper killed anofver one! Five prosies dead and mutilated!”

            Who was this dismembering monster? He was a demon who had  crawled out of the shadows.  At night, the Ripper stalks his victims, armed with a medical kit. Our men in blue everywhere know his ‘name’. The remains of cut up organs stained the streets of Whitechapel. Women were turned out onto the hunting ground and into the bloody hands of the killer.

“Oh put a sock in it Sally, you really believe that a silly old Jew killed those shilling whores? Nah, you gotta be skilled or smart for that kind of gore.”

                                                            *

            The body snatcher reared his ugly head.  Plainfield, Wisconsin. 1954. This guy likes his souvenirs. We as a globe love these pieces of memorabilia but Ed Gein takes this to a whole new level. He fashioned these pieces out of his victim’s bones and skin. The mad butcher was guilty of twenty crimes including the incident where he made leggings out of human skin. He spent his final life sentence in a mental hospital.

“Gein, you have to take your meds now,” said the authoritative voice in the white coat. “Meds now- take them – now- now” The screams of his cellmate woke Ed from a highly sedated sleep.

“What the fuck do you want mother fucker!” He screamed from the top of his lungs. This was not the first time Bill had been jumping up and down on his bed while spitting simultaneously. The gray walls of the six by twelve inch ‘room’ were splattered with a gooey, custard-like substance.  

“You’re a psycho! What are you doing?” he said. But Bill just stared back at him for a moment, mulling over what he heard.

“Oh you think your less of a psycho than me, you crazy, skin collector.” He said.

The voice appeared in the doorway. He spoke in a monotonous tone as if announcing the change in train’s times to La Crosse County, Wisconsin.

He moaned, dragging out his words “Come on you two. Keep it down. Time to take meds.”

            “Yes Bruce! Lets go get high,” he said with a broad grin on his face, which resembled that of a circus freak. When he was young, his father beat up Edward to a pulp. He still has the scars on his face, back and neck. One scar in particular though, made him infamous. This scar was behind his ear, where Mr. Gein had proudly decided to mark his territory with a rusty, old key.

            The body snatcher reared his ugly head. He crept up behind his next victim who was grieving her brother’s death by the family plot.  Flash. Bang. Snip. She was gone.

*

                        Imagine if you were I. It’s more of a mental hunger than a physical one. Get your game face on and move closer to your pray. Go on! Do it. You are in the jungle. The oppressive humidity is slowly changing you into a soft, hot mess. There is only one other living thing in your midst. That is a juicy, voluptuous, lean Giraffe. You haven’t eaten in weeks. Show those big white teeth but don’t bite down yet. You might scare it away. But you’ve survived based upon the teaching methods of Stanislavski. Keep in mind that you could die if you don’t eat but it will be murder. What are you going to do? Kill or be killed. Follow your instincts and choose wisely.

                                                            *

            The Manson family defined the term ‘Clan’. Charles Manson was the leader of that clan. He was the red flag to his bull. The most gruesome members of the Manson family were Patricia Krenwinkel, Charles Watson, Barbara Hoyt and Mary Brunner. Charles Manson and his clan were famous for the bloody murders of Sharon Tate and her friends.

            It was dark outside. Sharon lay on the couch sleeping. The large bump visible under her tank top. She was eight months pregnant at the time. Her husband Roman was working on a film in London. He didn’t want to leave her but Sharon insisted.

“You can’t pass up the opportunity to do this.” Sharon said as she stroked his hair. He told her he loved her and boarded the plane. Thinking back to this moment, Sharon wished she hadn’t said anything. Although she enjoyed the company of her friends, Sharon felt scared and nervous without Roman around.

            Their last meal was at a Mexican restaurant on Beverly Boulevard. Tex Watson, Charles Manson and Linda Kasabian hopped into their 1959 ford and drove up to the house. They climbed the sides of the house like spiders weaving a web. Sharon and her friends were found in a mess the next day.

                                                                        *

            The ‘killer clown’ will hunt you down. John Wayne Gacy molested thirty-three teenage boys and young men in Chicago, Illinois. He picked up the glass case and opened it with a shiny, silver key and takes out the first color. White face. Two blue triangles. Red mouth. Red hat. Netted fringe. Four balloons in his right hand.

“I’m ready to go” he told himself. The corners of his mouth curled flashing his teeth coated with a layer of dried blood “Damn beer stains” he thought. Looking back in the mirror, the clown slipped on his white gloves leaving the dark apartment in downtown Chicago. His very simple, clean-cut, neighbor wearing a sweater surely his grandmother knitted him, passed the clown on the way down the stairs.

            “Hello, so are you going to that kids birthday party you mentioned earlier?” Simon said.

The ‘killer crown’ replied “yeah, what’s it to you?”

Simon stuttered over his words almost tripping on the next step “No-no-nothing. I’m sorry!” The killer turned away and left the building. He doesn’t waste time on the weak ones. That wasn’t his type anyway. He has a taste for young blood.

            Although this nasty killer murdered and assaulted thirty-three young boys and men, he was only charged with twelve. He should have donated his brain to science, just to see what was inside. I imagine it’s as if you threw a ball around a room with a high ceiling and it bounced from the left top corner to the lamp in the bottom right corner than flew through the window and never came back.

                                                            *

            I never waste a cigarette much like I never waste a sleeping gazelle in the grass. I wish I could leave half a smoked, wet cigarette in the greenery but I wouldn’t want to litter my sin for anyone to see. Am I really a serial killer? I have only killed two people.  

A serial killer is typically defined as a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than thirty days.

            I feel guilty for my crimes. I may hunt in the wild but I don’t enjoy the taste of blood. I hate my own work. I want to show my intricate vulnerabilities. I am not perfect. I may possess narcissistic tendencies but I also know when to be humble. 

            I am not a real killer. I am a hungry, Black Panther who must hunt but only with the most sorrowful eyes. The best of times were when I was a small panther weaving threw the weeds and investigating endless possibilities. But as a wise woman once told me “curiosity killed the cat”. There is a time to kill and there’s a time to leave the rest of the world alone in its bliss.

As William Shakespeare said “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I would rather love and loose that love or life.

“Out damned spot” I say. “To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, Give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed!” Lady Macbeth- Act five scene one.